Michael Foster #ClimateTrial Day 1 - Update

posted by Nicky Bradford | 105.40sc
October 01, 2017

Almost a year to the day since the Valve Turners #ShutItDown, we gather in North Dakota for Michael Foster and Sam Jessup’s #ClimateTrial. We’re cozy, lumped in a hotel room, preparing for trial, looking over today’s media coverage, and expressing gratitude for each other.

We are ready and frankly, excited. Today we revisited the valve site, on the way driving past so many, ever flat, stretches of fields in various states of harvest. Every few miles we saw this great deposit of muddy sugar beets, hulking mounds 20 feet high and growing, ready for processing. Among the changing leave and the rusty scenes of human production and harvest, it’s easy to imagine that those working this land feel the climate catastrophe creeping in, if not by name, then by unreliable seasons.

You know, there are only 100 eligible jurors in Pembina county? Thirteen of those fine folks will be called to duty tomorrow at the County Courthouse, and among those, it’s easy to imagine more than one will recognize the extraordinary citizenry of Michael and Sam who are standing up to crimes against humanity and the earth.